I Could Pee on This

January 1, 2002
The quiet desperation and the long perspectives of middle-American comfort provided the deftly handled and uncommonly moving subjects for Morris (1931-1997), who transformed them into laconic, well-crafted poems. Morris' first book, Green Business (1970), established his topics and tones: quatrains and terse trimeter columns described an unlived life of desks and whiskey, of "suburban work/ You are not suited to," where "Whatever you do/ Occurs at a distance." Later books added historical subjects and mordant puns, making for a body of work always restrained, mostly sad, and often quotable. "Archaeology" begins "Almost nothing mysterious is/ To be found./ This attracts us." "At Forest Lawn Cemetery" (in Los Angeles) ends with Morris' plans to visit, next, "the Homes of the Stars/ And the Universal Lot." Strong poems address lost and realized hopes which link grandfathers to fathers, and fathers to sons: "They are what I would keep/ Until I leave them." Such musings on mortality and nostalgia made Morris the closest American poetry could get to Philip Larkin. Morris published his last book of verse in 1987; he devoted his last years to Then, an unfinished memoir. Born to genteel parents of some wealth, Morris saw his father recede into mental illness; his mother remarried in New York City, then moved the family to upstate New York and (after his stepfather's death) to North Carolina, from which he entered a military school. Two complete chapters about Morris' childhood show fine writing, but little to make his life stand out; the less-polished chapter on military school (and on his adult service in postwar Korea) offers more surprises. The real power lies in the poems; this very handsome selection, with its substantial, convincing introduction from Vendler, should certainly broaden his group of admirers. As a set, the books land midway between an in-house tribute (Morris taught at Washington University) and a serious effort to relaunch a neglected writer.